The Ring - An Alex Dorring Thriller

by Vince Vogel

  Dorring pushed the bike into the gap on the left.

  “Out the way!” he shouted at the man collecting garbage bags on that side.

  The guy ducked back against the wall and screamed when the bike ran over his toes. Dorring emerged on the other side of the truck. The police car was stuck behind it. As he reached the end of the alley, the helicopter emerged ahead, hovering in the air so that when he entered the street on the other side, he went directly underneath it. As he sped off down the road, it twisted around in midair, tipped forward and came swooping after him.

  At the end of the road, he watched as two police cars skidded around the corner and came at him head on.

  Don’t play chicken with a wolf, Dorring said in his head as he gritted his teeth and gunned the bike towards them. He lifted the front wheel at the last second, just as the bike was about to hit one of the cars, so that the wheel mounted its hood. Having gotten the bike up on top, he twisted the accelerator and the back wheel gripped the metal hood, pulling the bike up the car, so that Dorring cracked the windscreen as he rode over it, and then down the back like a scampering flea along the spine of a dog.

  He landed on the other side and continued as both police cars screeched to a stop behind him. The helicopter was still there, but he knew a way of getting rid of it. The Southbank of the River Thames was ahead. He headed into the district of Lambeth and quickly reached it.

  “Out of the way!” he shouted as he hit some stone steps that led down to a pedestrian walkway.

  People screamed and jumped to the side as Dorring came past, standing up on the bike for balance as it wobbled down the steps, the vehicle not designed for this type of thing and the suspension kicking back at Dorring as the bottom of the bike struck the steps.

  He made it to the bottom, put one foot on the ground and twisted the bike sharply around ninety degrees so that he faced north along the river. He then let go of the clutch and dropped it back into gear, skidding forward and speeding along the edge of the river.

  The helicopter hovered behind him as he traveled at around sixty miles an hour down a narrow stretch of pathway, people darting to the edges well before he reached them, his finger tapping the horn constantly so that they had ample warning.

  He reached the first bridge and went under. He recognized it. There were another three bridges until he reached where he was after.

  As he emerged, the pathway began to travel parallel to a road, which stood several yards to the left up a grass bank. Police cars began racing along it, the men at the windows making signs at him to pull over.

  Dorring merely grinned.

  Thank God this isn’t America, he said to himself. They’d have started shooting at me out of the windows by now.

  He made it to the bridge he was after. It was wide and he entered dark shadow underneath. Bringing the bike to a screeching stop, he jumped off and tossed it to the ground. The brick edge of a building bordered the pathway opposite the river. There was a door. With all his strength, he met it with the sole of his boot and forced it in.

  Then he entered darkness. Hopefully, they had no idea what he was up to. Eventually, they would. But so long as that was minutes into the future, he could make it. He entered a long corridor of cold bricks, the air almost frozen compared to the stuffy sunlight outside. The bricks began vibrating as he traveled along and it was almost as if the whole corridor was going to fall down. At the end was another door. This one was covered in signs. Danger, Keep Out! The picture of a stickman being hit with a bolt of electricity was next to this.

  Dorring kicked this door several times until it broke from its bolts. Then he entered more darkness. More cold air flowed along. He got a cigarette lighter from his pocket and flicked it.

  The flame shimmered nervously in the breeze. It illuminated a tunnel, the damp bricks of the ceiling curving around. Fixed along the edges were tubes full of cables and wires. On the ground was a set of tracks. The breeze became harsher and blew the flame out. A rush of air hit his sweat-drenched face, making it cold. The tunnel began to shake. Dorring looked at the walls as the tunnel began to flood with orange light.

  Avoiding the third rail—otherwise he’d end up like the stickman—he hopped across to the other side and gripped the wall with his back, the tubes of cables forcing his midriff out. He hoped it was enough. There was no time to calculate exactly how much room he’d need. In front of his feet, the tracks began to hum as they vibrated.

  The sound of screeching filled his ears and he closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. Around the bend of the tunnel, a blinding light emerged and headed towards him.

  A huge sigh of relief was released from Dorring as the rush of air and metal passed by his face about six inches in front. If he stepped forward, he’d be smashed to pieces before he’d even notice.

  Opening his eyes, Dorring watched the carriages of the train go past. The people onboard were all sitting down, reading newspapers, checking their phones or chatting away, surrounded by shopping bags. They had no idea that outside those dark windows, a man stood with his nose no further away than half a foot.

  The train passed and Dorring immediately put his head down and began running along the tunnel in the opposite direction to which it had come. The tunnel split. He took the left. The right side he knew. It led to the platform of Lambeth station. Too early, he remarked in his head.

  For the next half hour, oblivious to what the police above him were doing, Dorring ran along tunnels. Three more trains came past. Each time he’d have to grip the edge of the tunnel with his back and watch it go, observing the indifferent passengers who were unable to spot him in the darkness.

  Eventually, he made it to Farringdon, having traveled underneath the Thames River. He emerged onto the platform and ran to the end, where he threw himself up an escalator. At the top, there was no one waiting for him—thankfully—and only the derision of the London Underground staff met him when he jumped over the automatic barriers and pushed past them at the exit.

  Then he was running down the street, his arm completely numb where the shoulder had been shot. He turned off onto a side street. A woman was sitting in her car, waiting for the lights to change. Dorring thought quickly. He came around to the passenger side. The door was open. He let himself in and the next thing, he was sitting next to the woman as she gazed incredulously at him.

  “Drive,” he snarled, the knife in his good hand.

  “Where to?” she asked him nervously.

  “Away from here.”

  When the light turned green, she was still gazing across the car at him.

  “Go!” he growled at her, nodding toward the traffic lights.

  She turned to them, put the car in gear and rolled out of there. Dorring flipped the sunshield down and ducked into the seat. He was breathing heavily and felt lightheaded, but the last thing he should do is fall unconscious.

  46

  The door opened and Foster looked up. He was naked and shivering, curled up in the corner. The light hurt his eyes as it flooded the cell. His body ached all over from the beating they’d given him. The fingers of his remaining hand were twisted up like the exposed roots of a fallen tree.

  He’d put up quite the fight when they’d dragged him down here. Had lasted some time. But as they’d held his hand to a table and gone at the fingers with a hammer, he’d screamed and struggled. He’d not even realized he’d let things out. They’d flown out of him, along with the screams. The name of Detective Inspector Jonathon Powell had flown out of him. Then other things. The guns he’d given Dorring. The make. The model. Everything that led them back to it. They’d gone to work after that.

  Lawrence Grayling, Lord of the Realm, stood in the doorway, his shadow reaching across the concrete floor and landing on Foster.

  “Your man’s quite the resourceful bastard, isn’t he?” Grayling hissed.

  “He’ll find you eventually,” Foster said from his broken mouth, the hammer having struck it several times, splitting and crac
king apart his front teeth.

  Grayling stepped into the cell and the door was slammed shut behind him. For a second or two, there was nothing but darkness. Then the strip lighting buzzed into existence and the glare of them stung Foster’s eyes.

  Shielding them, he peeked up at Grayling.

  “He’s now wanted for the murder of Jonathon Powell,” his superior said, crouching down on his hams so that their eyes met across the dusty air. “Among other things. They’re talking about him all over the news as we speak. Rogue agent kills police officer. Shoots his way out of Imperial War Museum. Injures three members of the public.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Foster said defiantly. “He’ll escape them all and then he’ll come for you. Powell might have given him your name.”

  “Possibly. But it’ll do him no good. My men will be waiting for him. If he comes for me, then he’ll be making the biggest mistake of his life.”

  47

  May stood at the kitchen sink, washing the lunch things up. She was idly staring out the window when she saw a car pull up along the dirt track.

  “More bloody cops,” she grumbled to herself.

  But then, when she took in the details of the car, she began to wonder if her original assessment was correct. Because it was a black Mercedes with tinted windows. Not the type you see cops driving around. Two men got out. They wore suits and had black shades over their eyes. They could have been twins. Their neatly parted brown hair and their clean shaven white faces were almost devoid of any detail, so that they looked like clones of each other.

  They approached the cottage and rang the doorbell.

  “Who is it, May?” her sister Molly called out from her room.

  “Gimme a chance to find out, Molly,” she called back.

  Drying her hands on a tea towel, she came away from the sink and answered it.

  “Is Molly Rawly in?” one of the men asked.

  May stood, staring at them for a moment. There was no introduction. No identification held up. Just the question.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “Is Molly Rawly in?”

  May observed that one of the men glanced up the dirt track as if he was a lookout. There was nothing there except a crow pecking breadcrumbs off the grass where May had earlier discarded the remains of their lunch.

  “Who are—”

  She got no further. One of the men had grabbed her by the face and forced her backwards into the cottage. As his partner hit the old woman in the side of the hip with a taser and sent her spiralling into unconsciousness, one of the men quietly closed the door behind him as he came inside.

  “Let’s get this done quick,” he said as his partner stood up from May.

  48

  Harriet Green was inside a homeless shelter when she got the call. She’d been passing the picture of Jess Rawly around a room full of disheveled people as they queued for food. Glancing at the screen of the phone, she didn’t recognize the number.

  “Hello?” she answered.

  “He’s taken her,” a man’s voice said.

  She vaguely recognized it.

  “Duggy?” she said.

  “He’s taken her. Killed Shirley. He… killed Shirley.” He was sobbing gently.

  “Who’s he taken, Duggy? Jess?”

  “Yeah. The girl. I went to get her back for you. She was staying with Shirley in the abandoned corn store up by the river. I wanted to bring her back to you. But then the man came. The ugly one. He stabbed Shirley and then he took the girl. I just ran.”

  “Where are you?”

  “St. Georges Drive, Pimlico. I’m close to the Costa coffee shop. But don’t worry about me. I saw the car he took her in. I got the registration number.”

  49

  Her hands were trembling as she put the keys in the lock of her front door. He stood behind her, close enough that he could grab her. He’d told her that he was able to break her neck with one hand. He only had one. The other was dripping with blood from the fingers, a hole in the back of the left shoulder of his jacket, a patch of blood oozing from it.

  The door opened and he shoved her in. She almost tripped and fell, but he grabbed her roughly by the back of her cardigan and kept her up.

  “Get in the living room,” he said.

  It was through an open door to the left. She went inside and backed into a corner of the room while he closed all the curtains. Then he turned to her.

  “I need tweezers, a sharp knife and alcohol,” he said.

  She stood frozen on the spot, glaring at him through terrified eyes. For the first time, he acknowledged how scared she was. He was coated in a frost of sweat. He looked feverish. Probably deranged to this woman. As they’d driven there, the radio had been on in the car. Mention of a man matching his description had gone out. “This man,” the announcer had said, “is to be regarded as highly dangerous and the police are advising members of the public not to approach him. To get away from him and call the emergency services immediately. I repeat, this man has already shot four people, killing one. He is highly dangerous.”

  “What’s your name?” Dorring asked her.

  “Gemma,” she said in half a voice.

  “I’m sorry, Gemma, for taking you hostage. I didn’t want to, but I had little choice.”

  “You could give yourself up?”

  He grinned at her. “I understand why you’d say that,” he said. “But if I do that, I’ll be dead.”

  “Is it true what the radio said?”

  “What part?”

  “That you shot four people today.”

  “No. It’s not. I was shot, but I never shot anyone myself. I was set up. The people after me knew I was going to see a man today that they didn’t want me to. They’ve staged this and blamed it on me.”

  She appeared unmoved by his explanations.

  You’re wasting your time trying to reason with her, Dorring said to himself. Just get what you need and leave her be.

  “Look,” he said, “it doesn’t matter. None of it. What does matter, however, is you cooperating with me. Do that and I’ll leave you alone. Then Gemma can get on with the rest of her life. Have an exciting little anecdote to tell her friends. Now, I need you to get these things. Do you have surgical spirit?”

  She nodded.

  “Then show me,” he said.

  50

  Otis sat at a table in an eight-by-eight foot cell of a room, closed in on all sides by walls the color of ash. The table, the chair he sat on and an empty one opposite were the only furniture. In the corner behind him stood a uniformed police officer with his arms folded in front of his chest. Otis’ own arms were behind his back, his hands cuffed so that he leaned against them as he sat.

  They’d swooped on the car not long after Dorring had left. The old man had had no chance of fighting them off. They’d pointed their guns straight for him and Tina as they’d sat there, the girl holding onto the dog as Bess barked away at the approaching men. Otis had reached for the gun, gripped his fingers on the handle. But then he imagined what the next few seconds would be like if he pulled it from the waistband of his jeans and pointed it at them. Their guns would go off in a hail of bullets and he, Tina and the dog would be shot to rags inside. So he’d merely lifted his hands as a cop had slowly moved to his window and ordered him to unwind it. He did and the next minute, a barb had shot through the gap and tasered him. The old man’s bladder wasn’t what it used to be and he’d wet himself. He’d woken up in it. He was still sitting in it now. It was cold and uncomfortable, therefore every so often, he would squelch around in it, trying to reposition himself more comfortably. They’d not given him the chance of cleaning himself up. Merely pulled him out of the cell the second he’d woken up in and taken him here.

  “Where’s Tina?” he asked.

  “I told you,” the cop said. “I don’t know.”

  “Yeah, ya do.”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “Then find out for me.”

&nbs
p; “I ain’t findin’ nothin’ out for you, old man. So just sit still and keep your mouth shut.”

  “I want my—”

  His speech was cut short by the door opening. A stern-looking man with short brown hair and a thin moustache walked in, holding a folder under one arm.

  “You can leave now, Hoskins,” he said to the cop.

  “Thank you, sir,” the uniform said before heading out the door.

  The stern man stood gazing down at Otis.

  “Where’s Tina and my dog?” the latter asked the man.

  He didn’t answer. Simply shut the door and sat down opposite, his malevolent eyes not leaving the face of Otis Rawly.

  “I take it,” were the first words he said, “that you’ve been informed of your rights?”

  “Yes. I told them to bog off.”

  “Not very wise in your position.”

  “Well, bein’ that I don’t really know my position, I’m unsure what’s wise and what’s not.”

  “You’ve waived your right to legal representation. Is that correct?”

  “Yeah. They offered me a lawyer, but I told ’em I don’t need any.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Yep,” the old man said solemnly.

  “Okay then.”

  A tape recorder sat in the middle of the table. He pressed record on it and introduced the interview.

  “My name is Detective Sergeant Ian Blake,” he said. “I’m interviewing Otis Rawly. The date is August the twenty-fifth and the time is…”

  Once he’d finished, he opened the folder he’d brought in with him and took a photograph from it.

  Laying it in front of Otis, he asked, “Who is this man?”

  It was a still picture from CCTV. From the Imperial War Museum. It was Dorring walking into the place.

  “Don’t know,” Otis said, having glanced down at the picture briefly.

  “Yes, you do. I’ve CCTV footage of him leaving you and the girl in the car. I also have other footage of you two together at various points during the last two days. So tell me who he is.”